Above and Below
by BeneathAWesternSky
Summary: Takes place just after 2x09. A different take on Grail and their mission. Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy are still searching for god. Jesse works out a dubious truce with Grail. Surgeon Nina Novak is then thrown into entire world is thrown upside down, and she finds love in the most unexpected of places- in a self obsessed, drug abusing fornicator of a vampire with a filthy mouth.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I just started watching Preacher, and I came up with this idea in the week between episodes 9 and 10 of season 2 of Preacher, so much of this is completely opposite of what's happening in the show currently. I also do not read the comics, so I can't say that I'll be using any source material there. I just love Cassidy and wanted to put a little steamy fic out into the world for other folks who want to see more fics of their favorite foul mouthed vampire and an OC.**

* * *

Jesse Custer sat across from the man with the cloudy eye and the permanent look of disinterest, not completely comprehending what he had heard. His heart raced. Everything in his body told him to run, to get back to the apartment to collect Tulip, Cassidy, and hell, even Denis, and get the hell out of New Orleans.

The organization that tried to kill him and his friends now wanted to work with him. The conditional ceasefire presented to Jesse was one he was not sure he was willing to accept. Not when the asking price was so damn high.

"So," Jesse said, pouring himself another generous three fingers of the whisky in front of him, "to get the straight… You were implying that your organization works with heaven?"

The serious man spoke obligingly. "Hand in glove, for two millennia."

Jesse ran his hand over the stubble forming on his face, and nodded in disbelief.

"Then you can tell me—where is god?," Jesse asked, unconvinced this man could give him answers.

"I don't know," Herr Starr said. "What I do know is that we can help you. We have resources. So," he said, indicating the two large three ring binders in front of them, "if you'll take a look here, we have many holdings—"

 _Wham_! Jesse cracked the folder against the man's head, sending him down onto the bar room floor. Jesse knelt down over him.

"I said," Jesse repeated, using Genesis, " **where's god**?"

The serious man said calmly, "I don't know." He paused a moment. "Your power is inspiring."

Jesse looked down on him still, "Then tell me why I shouldn't _inspire_ it to ram this down your throat."

"Because… Preacher Custer, you need me," Her Starr smiled. He helped himself off the floor gingerly.

"What you're asking me to do is a sin," Jesse said, his eyes ablaze. "How do I even know these people are who you say they are?"

"Preacher Custer," Herr Starr responded, growing more impatient. "My organization has been tracking this family for centuries. We think we would know if they were not who they claimed they were not."

"If your organization is as powerful as you say, why haven't you brought them in and killed them yourself?"

Herr Starr seemed a bit proud of himself at that. "Oh, I assure you, we have killed plenty of the descendants. They threaten the very foundation of Christianity, the assumption that Jesus fathered no children. But we have not found them all. Finding _one_ takes years of work. Their network runs deep underground." The cracks in his pride showed at this little inconvenient truth.

"So you need Genesis to find the rest of them," Jesse said.

"Yes."

"What's to stop me from using Genesis on you right now to stop you from coming after me and my friends ever again?" Jesse asked, but he knew the truth. He knew that killing one would not ensure their safety, nor would using Genesis ensure their safety. Herr Starr would be replaced within minutes with another zealot.

"Preacher Custer," Herr Starr said, finally finishing his whisky, and dabbing his bloody nose with his handkerchief. "You know that unless you do this, my organization will keep coming after you. And I know that if I don't give you this reprieve from our attacks, there is mutually assured destruction. Find the descendants of Christ. Kill them, and god will show himself to you. And I get to ensure the goals of my organization are met."

He stood, buttoning his white blazer. "We will give you two weeks. If in that time you do not complete your task, our attacks will resume, and you can rest assured that your friends and you will not live to see two weeks and a day."

At that, he turned and left Jesse Custer on his bar stool to brood over the decision he had to make.

* * *

The one-hundred-and-nineteen year old vampire had no idea what he had bargained for when he had turned his elderly son immortal. He had never raised a child before (true, he had no idea how many he even had, but that was beside the point). He had skipped the rebellious teenage phase of Denis's life. And it would seem that now was his opportunity to make up for it.

Through the limited means available to him, Proinsias Cassidy had attempted to communicate to Denis that he was not to drink blood unless he needed to heal. And especially not human blood, unless the donor was willing or deserved a bloody end.

So when Denis had killed one of the armed soldiers without warning, taking away their chances of questioning him, Cassidy had to press the point home.

"Denis, you gotta make sure yeh don't just kill folks for the fun of it," Cassidy said, abandoning the use of his smart phone translator. Denis only rolled his eyes, and continued to dance to Edith Piaf records.

Fed up with his attempts, Cassidy grumbled and shut the door to Denis's room with a resounding _thud_.

Cassidy opened a recently cleaned and blood-free kitchen cabinet, and grabbed a bottle of cheap Ratwater whisky, uncorking the top and drinking straight from the bottle.

"That bad, huh?" Tulip asked from her seated position at the kitchen table, her feet up on the table.

"I didn't know parentin' could be dis hard," Cassidy said, sitting across from Tulip.

"This ain't parenting, Cassidy. What you did to Denis, that's… he's a grown man, so he'll do what ever he wants."

"I know," Cassidy said, clutching the bottle to his chest. "But when I was turned it was different. I had me whole family to…" Cassidy swallowed, not wanting to reveal too much to Tulip, lest he expose his own sad past. "I just don't want him hurtin' no one doesn't need hurtin'."

"And if he does?" Tulip asked, her eyes growing wide. "Could you put a stop to it?"

Cassidy was silent a moment. Could he take away the curse he'd given Denis, and kill him to save innocent people? If it came to it, he could. He drank generously from the bottle.

"I don't tink it would come to dat," he said, resolutely.

"Let's hope not," Tulip said, warningly. She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut short by the apartment door opening abruptly.

Jesse rushed in, his eyes wild.

"We gotta go," Jesse said.

Tulip and Cassidy stared a moment.

"Wot d'yeh mean, 'we've got to go', padre?" Cassidy asked.

"I know how to find god," Jesse said, impatiently.

Tulip perked up. "You serious?"

"Yep. We have two weeks to do it. So let's go."

"Listen, Jesse," Cassidy said, setting his Ratwater down and standing in front of his best friend. "I got Denis to look after. I can't just go off—he's still learnin' how to, yeh know… be wot he is."

"Well, then Cass, we'll see you in two weeks."

"Alright! Alright, just a minute there boyo," Cass said, incredulously. "I'm not leavin' me best two mates to go off on their own for two weeks with naught but Genesis between 'em for protection. The least yeh could do is tell us wot the hell is going on, 'fore we leave Denis here to fend for 'imself."

"I can't explain right now, Cassidy, we've gotta go. You've just gotta trust me, alright?" Jesse stood with his hands on his hips, looking back and forth between Tulip and Cassidy.

Tulip sighed. "So long as you explain what the hell is goin' on, I'm in."

Jesse nodded. "Alright. We leave in an hour. Do what you've gotta do to be ready by then."

Jesse stomped off into one of the other rooms, leaving Tulip and Cassidy to hastily get themselves in line before departing. Cassidy, of course, for a moment, felt conflicted. Denis was a young vampire, and seemed so impulsive. He really should stay and guide him through the first few lessons of vampirism.

With a passing Google-Translated paragraph, Cassidy gave Denis the riot act, and hoped it would be enough to keep him safe for the next two weeks.

Nina Novak snapped the nitrile gloves off her hands in frustration. Her scrubs were bloodied from surgery. It was a young boy, no more than sixteen by Nina's estimation, who had been brought in for multiple gunshot wounds to the abdomen. It wasn't uncommon for her in Chicago to see this kind of thing. Gang violence had been on the rise recently, and inexplicably.

Nina was a gifted trauma surgeon, but some cases went beyond saving. When her father had asked her why she didn't just become a specialist, she merely shrugged him off. She felt she could do the most good in the emergency room. Days like today, however, made her question her decision to stay.

There were no next of kin at the hospital—the boy was still unidentified. That job would fall to the police, so Nina was spared the task of telling next of kin. She hated that part worst of all.

She shucked her scrubs off in the locker room, and tossed them into the bin to be taken to the laundry. Having stayed well past her shift in surgery, Nina was on her thirty-sixth hour without sleep. She felt she could barely keep her eyes open as she pulled on her athletic leggings and baggy sweatshirt, but was drawn from her daze when her cell phone rang.

With a sigh, Nina picked it up from the bench and saw that it was her father. Nina never ignored phone calls from her father, Goran Novak, but even still, she begrudgingly answered.

" _Bok tata_ ," she said in their shared native Croatian, the exhaustion in her voice clear. "What's going on?"

Goran's heavily accented voice met her on the other end. "I need to speak with you, _draga_. It's very important."

Nina perked up immediately. Despite her exhaustion, her father never called her under duress. She had never even seen her father lose his cool in all her twenty-nine years of life.

" _Tata_ , is everything alright?"

"I'm fine, Nina. But I need you to come home. I will explain everything when you are here."

"Ok, _tata_ , I'll be over soon," Nina said, and ended the call. Grabbing her duffel bag, Nina rushed out of the hospital and to the closest train stop, where she would take the blue line to her apartment, and drive from there to her father's house. The drive was an hour from Nina's. Nina knew it wasn't safe to drive on this little sleep, but she could do no better than a Redbull and some cold water splashed on her face as she traversed the empty streets of Chicago at two o'clock in the morning.

* * *

"Please," Goran pleaded. "Leave her out of this. I have kept her from Grail this long."

The three strangers in Goran Novak's home had not threatened Goran's life. They had not hurt him. But one of them possessed a power that Goran knew could not be defeated. He had the power of Genesis. He had read of it—all of the Order had. In protecting the descendants of Jesus, Order members had to essentially become religious scholars.

It was fitting then that the Order placed him in his post as a religious studies professor at Northwestern University.

Tulip sat quietly on the couch next to the older man. Cassidy leaned sullenly against the doorframe in the living room, his arms crossed. He and Tulip had faithfully followed their friend to Chicago, but what Jesse told them to get them there seemed to be crumbling to pieces.

He said he just wanted to talk to someone who might have a lead on where god was. This felt more like holding an old man hostage.

Jesse briefly made eye contact with Cassidy, who looked away in displeasure.

"Please, my daughter doesn't know. She can't know. It's what's keeping her safe."

Jesse's patience grew thin. He had used Genesis more liberally than he should, he knew, but there was no way for them to wait for the girl to arrive than to use it.

" **Don't talk until she gets here**."

Cassidy huffed, and mumbled to himself. He turned to leave, and when Jesse asked where he was going, Cassidy spat back, "to smoke, unless you've a problem wit dat."

He didn't wait to find out.

He sat on the front stoop of the small, suburban house, and lit a cigarette in near darkness. After finishing each one, he would stub it out and light another. Before too long, he had almost finished his pack, when suddenly a black sedan sped down the empty neighborhood street, and screeched to a halt in front of the house.

Cassidy stood on ceremony, and waited for the woman in leggings and a sweatshirt almost run up to him, her long, dark hair in a messy braid that went almost to her waist.

"Who're you?" the young woman asked. "What's going on? Is my father alright?"

Cassidy threw his arms up in a calming gesture. "He's alright, he's just inside there," he said, and stepped aside before he was knocked over by the frantic girl. She threw open the door, not bothering to close it behind her.

" _Tata_?" she called, looking in each room as she made her way to the living room in the back. When she reached the living room, she saw two more strangers, and her father, sitting on the sofa and loveseats.

" _Tata, sto se dogada_?" Nina asked, looking at the man dressed as a preacher, and the woman in a dress and leather jacket.

"It's alright, Nina," Goran said, finally able to speak. He stood, and approached his daughter, hugging her. "We have… much to talk about."

When they separated, Nina turned on the man in black, her green eyes ablaze with anger.

"What is going on?" She demanded. "Someone needs to explain this."

" **Sit down, and be calm** ," Jesse said, using the word.

Nina laughed. "Until you tell me _who the fuck you are_ , I'm not doing any such thing."

Jesse was speechless a moment. Genesis didn't work on her. He would have to resort to actually convincing this girl.

"It's a lot to explain, but you have to come with us. Your father has some things he needs to tell you."

"Please," Goran pleaded again. "For the love of god, please don't make me tell her."

"Too late for that, Mister Novak. **Tell your daughter who she is**."

"You're the descendant of Jesus Christ himself."

The words hung in the air, and Nina looked around at the strangers in the room—including the one from outside, who'd silently made his way back into the living room. Her eyes widened.

"Ok, maybe it's because I'm on my thirty-seventh hour without sleep, or maybe it's that it spent three hours in surgery, or suddenly Redbull laces its drinks with shrooms… but, what?"

Goran hung his head and sunk back down into the couch, leaving Nina standing. His hair had been black Nina's whole life, but only recently was he starting to show grey hairs. Now though, he looked ten years older than she knew he was.

"I'm a part of an organization tasked with keeping the descendants of Jesus Christ safe from the Grail organization. They were the Knights Templar at one time."

Nina searched her father's eyes for evidence of a lie, but she could find none. She saw, as he wept silent tears, that her father was telling the truth. She'd only seen him cry once before—when her mother had died.

Nina held her hand up slightly. "Assuming… I believe this," she looked at the preacher in black, "why does this mean that I have to come with you?"

Jesse's jaw flexed. "I told Grail that I would kill you, if they left my friends and me alone."

Nina's heartbeat quickened, and she backed up involuntarily. When she collided with a solid figure behind her, she gave a small cry. The tall, scraggly looking man behind her placed his hands on her arms to steady her.

"What the fok are you on about, padre?" Cassidy said. "Tulip and I agreed to come, helpin' you find god and all, but I didn't sign up for killin' innocent girls."

"I _told_ Grail I would kill her," Jesse said, very nearly on the verge of using Genesis on his best friend. "And the second they find out I'm _not_ going to do that, they'll be after all of us."

Tulip sighed and rubbed at her face.

Nina shook her head. "That's it," she said, reaching into her pocket, pulling out her phone. "I'm calling the police, and you're going to leave my father and me alone."

"Now there, love," Cassidy said, plucking the phone from Nina's grasp, and holding it away from her. "Jus' here the preacher man out. Les' not bring the police inta this jus' yet."

Nina bristled, and turned to her father, sitting beside him.

"Dad, I don't understand any of this," Nina said, grabbing her father's hands. He grasped them a moment, and brought one up to her face.

"Nina, I have wanted to tell you your whole life. The Order placed me with your mother, to protect the two of you. She wanted to tell you too. She would have, but… The Order got her too soon."

" _Tata_ , what are you talking about?" Nina asked. She wasn't sure if it was her exhaustion, or the absurdity of what was happening, but she understood nothing. "Mom died in Croatia, in the war. That's when we came here. No _organization_ killed her, _Tata_ , it was soldiers."

Goran shook his head, his icy blue eyes shining with tears. "No, Nina. It was Grail. We left during the War for Independence, but our war was a different war entirely."

"Not that this isn't a very touching and intimate moment," Jesse said, impatiently standing, "but we are going to need to get your daughter out of here before Grail realizes I don't plan on killing the descendants of Christ."

"Descendant," Goran said soberly.

"What?" Jesse asked, scrunching his face.

"Singular. She is the last," he said. Nina's father rose, and went to the book shelf on the far end of the living room, and began pulling books off the shelf. When he had finished moving the books, he opened a compartment in the back of the shelf, and removed a small wooden box.

He stood before Nina, seated still on the couch, and put the box in her hands.

"Everything is explained here. If what this man says is true, then Grail is close. You will need to leave with them."

"'Leave with these people,' dad, _this is crazy_!"

Goran opened his mouth to speak, but was drawn from his train of thought when a red laser dot appeared on Nina's chest. At a second's thought, Goran threw himself in front of Nina, pushing her down on the couch, and Nina heard the sound of glass shattering.

A cacophony of sound reached Nina's ears: shouts from the three nameless guests, more gunfire from outside, peppering the wallpaper above with bullet holes. Goran slumped over, and fell to the ground in front of the couch.

"Dad?" Nina shouted, looking at her father who stared at the scene unfolding before them. Nina saw the blood, and reacted instinctually.

Goran looked down at his chest, and saw the red puddle that had begun to form. Nina pressed her hands to Goran's chest to try to stop the bleeding. She saw gunshot wounds so frequently, she knew it should feel like any other day, but with her father's face growing paler by the second, she felt she may go into shock any moment.

Nina kept shouting for her father to keep his eyes open, but Goran smiled sleepily and raised a bloodied hand to his daughter's porcelain face, marking it crimson.

" _Volim te_ , _draga_ ," he said, over and over.

"No, no, god! Someone call an ambulance, I can't stop the bleeding. He's going to bleed out if we don't get him to a hospital," Nina shouted, unaware that tears were falling down her face.

Nina saw the woman firing a gun of her own out the window, and saw the preacher open the door angrily, exiting abruptly.

" **Stop**!" she heard him shout with his booming voice from outside. Still, the barrage continued.

The tall, lanky man with the Irish accent knelt down to where she and her father were, and shouted into her ear. "Don't go anywhere," he said, and left through the back door.

Nina couldn't believe that he just left her like that, left her father to bleed out. Looking back at her father, who was very close to losing consciousness, she immediately snapped to attention, and scrambled for her phone, which should have been in a side pocket on her leggings. It was gone. With a pang in her stomach, she recalled that the Irishman had taken it.

"Nina," her father's voice called when the barrage of gunfire had finally ceased. Nina looked back at her father. "Nina, the box. Take the box."

" _Tata_ , I'm not leaving you," she said through her tears. He smiled once more, and closed his eyes. " _Tata_ ," Nina called, shaking her father.

He was unresponsive. Nina felt for a pulse at his neck, but found none. Before Nina could react, she felt hands on her arms, pulling her back.

"Time to go, love," the Irishman said, pulling her to her feet. Nina resisted, and as soon as he let her go to grab the small, wooden box her father had given her, Nina went back to her knees to try to resuscitate her father.

" _No_ ," she said fiercely, looking up at the Irishman, who had blood running down his mouth and the front of his shirt. Had she not just watched her father die, she might have been concerned for him as well.

"There's no savin' 'im, darlin'," he said, and pulled her easily up to her feet. He wrapped his arm around her waist as she began to struggle.

"No!" she shouted, sobbing and clawing at the arm around her waist. He was walking her towards the front door, and no matter how hard she resisted, he was still stronger _. So much_ stronger.

"I know, love," he said gently into her ear, as they reached the outside. Nina saw two bodies on the floor—a man and a woman—and the woman and the preacher looking down at their faces.

"That fuckin' bitch!" Tulip said, looking down at the woman whose throat had been gored. "She was Grail! This whole time, that lyin' bitch!"

"Wait, you know her?" the preacher said, looking at the woman he too recognized as a lounge singer.

"Do we want to have this conversation elsewhere, padre?" Cassidy asked, still holding Nina, who was very close to collapse.

"The tires on the Chevelle are shot out," Tulip said.

Jesse looked at Nina, who he knew was very close to not being able to talk with anyone, and since Genesis didn't seem to work on her, he shook her shoulders. "Hey! We gotta use your car. Where's the keys?"

Nina began to shake, despite the man holding her waist. "Ignition," she managed to say. Without a word, the preacher and the woman emptied the beat up old muscle car with the tires shot out, throwing what bags they had into the trunk of Nina's sensible black sedan. When that had been done, the woman got behind the wheel of the car, and the preacher in the passenger side.

The Irishman opened the back door, and gently led Nina in, sliding in beside her. They sped away, taking turns so fast that Nina kept being tilted into the man beside her. When they reached the overpass to get onto the freeway, they slowed to a legal pace, and drove for a time in silence.

The driver and the front passenger spoke to themselves, but Nina couldn't register anything that they were saying. She knew she was most likely going into shock. When she finally let herself cry, she lay her head in her hands, and wept quietly. She flinched when she felt a hand on her back, and looking sideways at the Irishman with blood all over his face, Nina broke.

She didn't have it in her to be angry at him for taking her away from her dying father. She was a surgeon, and knew she couldn't have saved him even if he was brought to the hospital. Her exhaustion, coupled with her grief, caused her face to contort in silent sorrow. Cassidy knit his eyebrows in sympathy, and moved his hand further down her back, onto her other shoulder.

Nina let herself be pulled into his arms. She didn't know these people. She barely recalled all that she had learned that night. But there, in the arms of a stranger, she let herself cry, and fell asleep almost instantly.


	2. Chapter 2

At the age of fourteen, Nina Novak got pneumonia in the middle of her freshman year of high school. She'd had it a few times before, but she would always remember the feeling when, in science class, she raised her hand and told her teacher she had to go to the nurse, as she had pneumonia, the teacher didn't believe her. But she knew the feeling. The feeling of utter exhaustion that nothing else could rival.

In her adult life, Nina had never experienced anything quite like it. Until the day after her father died. So when Nina opened her eyes at noon the next day, she felt an aching pain throughout her whole body.

For a brief moment, she lived in a blissful world where her father was not dead. And then the memory hit. It couldn't have been real last night. It was just some horrible dream. She sat up, and looking at the dried blood on her hands, she realized it wasn't a horrible dream.

As she slowly awakened, she took stock of her surroundings. She was in a hotel room, and the curtains were drawn. Light glowed around the curtains, so she knew it was day. She was underneath the covers, and her shoes had been removed. And much to her surprise, she heard the steady, low and unmistakable sound of a man snoring. She turned over, and on the other side of the small room was another double sized bed, on which lay the gangly Irishman from the night before.

She froze for a moment and considered what she should do. Should she wake him to get answers? That didn't seem like the right thing, so instead she slipped out from underneath her covers and padded over to the bathroom, and shut the door. When she flipped on the harsh, fluorescent light, she was met with a sorry sight indeed.

Her dark brown hair was almost completely out of her braid by now, and dried blood covered one of her cheeks. She stared a moment at her bloodshot, green eyes, and found that she was too shocked to cry. In a clinical manner, she rolled up her sleeves (again with a fair amount of dried blood on them), and washed her hands. When they no longer were stained crimson, she washed the blood off her face. Wiping away the water with a towel, she paused and looked at her Northwestern University sweatshirt—it looked like her scrubs did after a particularly difficult surgery.

Not wanting to look at it anymore, she opened the bathroom door and quietly walked back into the hotel room, and found that the Irishman was awake, flipping through channels on the TV and sitting up in bed.

Nina stood and the two of them shared a moment of silence.

"You were out pretty good last night," he said. "Carried yeh up and put yeh te bed without so much as a stir. Figured it was best to let yeh sleep."

"Uh," Nina said, swallowing. "Thanks, I guess."

More silence.

Nina walked a few steps and sat on the foot of her double bed. "You know how they say is the best way to eat an elephant?" Nina asked, looking at the hem of her bloodied sweater.

"One bite at a time," Cassidy said quietly.

"I guess for starters," Nina said, with a sad smile, "what's your name?"

"Proinsias Cassidy," he said. "Go by Cassidy though."

"And your friends? The preacher, and the woman?"

"Preacher Jesse Custer, and his girlfriend Tulip O'Hare."

Nina's jaw flexed when she remembered the preacher from the night before. He had brought the hailstorm down on her and her father. Sensing this, Cassidy spoke up.

"Jesse's a good man, he is. He jus… Doesn't know how to dial it down."

"My _father_ is dead," Nina snapped.

Cassidy held his hands up defensively.

Nina licked her lips and breathed deeply. "That… _thing_ he does. What is that?"

"Ah yes," Cassidy said, turning off the television. "It's name is Genesis. It's quite a long story, but the short version is, it's a power from god, and it's found its way into our dear preacher over there." Cassidy indicated the suite door in the middle of the room. "Means he can tell anyone to do anything, and they'll do it."

"Except—"

"Except you, exactly," Cassidy said, and Nina couldn't help but notice that Cassidy's dark eyes swept down and back up again. "You bein' related to ole J.C., I figure, means that don't work on you."

"He didn't seem to like that," Nina said, sidestepping the mention of her being related to Jesus.

"Nope," Cassidy said, and a mirthful grin spread on his face. "But I suppose it's about time that Jesse Custer learned that he can't control _everyone_."

"Everything my dad said last night… About me being—what I am—it's true isn't it?"

Cassidy thought a moment. "Daresay it is."

Nina felt a pang in her chest, and looked over at the wooden box that rested on the desk. She would have to open it eventually. She stood, and made her way across the room, and touched her fingertips to the worm-eaten wood. Cassidy looked over in poorly veiled curiosity, and noticing this, Nina picked the box up, and went back to the foot of her own bed. As she considered opening it, she stalled another moment.

"I'm Nina," she said lamely, "by the way…"

Cassidy latched eyes with her and smiled kindly. "D'yeh need some privacy with that?"

Nina shook her head. "I was essentially kidnapped last night," she said numbly, "and my father died in front of me. I think privacy is not a luxury for me right now."

She opened the latch on the front, and opened the box to reveal several sealed envelopes, all numbered one through four. Unable to contain herself, Nina broke the seal on the back of the first, and opened it.

Flipping through the pages, Nina noticed it was in her father's hand. "It's in Croatian," her eyebrows furrowed. "I can speak it well enough, but I'm a slow reader." She looked up at Cassidy. Finding no objections there, Nina began reading the letter from the beginning.

Cassidy watched her read the whole thing. He watched as she alternated emotions every few seconds. Disbelief, confusion, anger, and finally gut-wrenching sorrow that contorted her face. Unable to read any more of the letter, Nina tossed it aside and tried to keep from sobbing. Tears ran down her face fiercely.

"I shoulda left, I'm sorry," Cassidy said, rising and heading for the door.

"No, please," Nina stammered, wiping a hand on her face. "Please don't leave me alone." She looked up at him as he stood in front of her bed. "I know I don't know you at all, but I can't be alone right now."

Cassidy desperately wanted to reach out and hold the girl whose whole world was crumbling before his own eyes. His sense of propriety got the better of him, and he merely sat next to her. He was a fornicator and a cad at best, but being that way with a descendant of Jesus lay just outside of Cassidy's reach.

"Wot does it say?" he asked, hoping to help her calm down.

Nina wiped away more tears, and after a few heaving sighs, she looked back up into Cassidy's eyes.

"He wasn't my father," she said. "He was a part of this Order, and because he was the most gifted scholar among their ranks, my mother and I were sent to him for protection."

"D'yeh know who yer father was then?"

"His name is in there, yeah. But he died shortly after I was conceived." Realization dawned across her face. "They thought he was the last one. That's why it took them so long to find me."

"Jaysus," Cassidy said, out of habit. "Oh, shite, I meant—"

"No," Nina said, managing to chuckle a bit. "I mean, I'm Catholic or what ever, but being what ever it is that I am… doesn't mean anything to me."

"So… yeh never felt different or anything? Never turned your water into wine in high school?" Cassidy laughed at his own joke.

"No…"

"Yeh don't heal the sick and restore sight to the blind?"

At that, Nina grew silent and looked at her hands.

"Ohhh, _shite_ ," Cassidy said. "You one o' them healers on the TV?"

This drew a small laugh from Nina, and she shook her head. "No, um… I'm a doctor."

"Ohhh, right," Cassidy said, remembering the night before. "You were talkin' bout surgery or some such."

"Yeah," Nina said, and looked around the hotel room if only to avoid Cassidy's eyes. "I'm a trauma surgeon. I mean, people die in the ER, it's just what happens. People die on my watch. Some things are just past my skills."

"But I bet yer good at it, aren't ya?" Cassidy asked. He rose, and opened the mini refrigerator, grabbing a few bottles of orange juice for the two of them. "I know ye are."

Nina rubbed at her face. "Work," she said. "I'm off today, but I don't know how I'm going to handle— _this_. I have a life. I can't just give it up."

"Well," Cassidy said, "O' course, you'll not be goin' back fer a while, wot with Grail on yer arse, but Jesse did say two weeks for us to find god. And unless I'm an idjit, I tink most people give two weeks fer… er…"

"Bereavement," Nina said. "Yeah… I'll call in in a bit." She opened the bottle of orange juice that Cassidy had passed her, and drank a generous forth of it. When she had taken it away from her mouth, Cassidy swiftly grabbed it from her again.

"Excellent, time fer a screwdriver," he said, and reopened the mini refrigerator, grabbing two small bottles of vodka.

"It's noon," Nina said, looking at the hotel alarm clock in disbelief.

"Right, ye never heard of brunch?" Cassidy asked as he emptied one of the small bottles into Nina's orange juice.

Trying to find a reason not to drink at that moment, Nina failed, and shrugged. She let Cassidy get on with his work of fixing the two of them a drink, and she went to the window to open the curtains.

"Wait there, love, don't—"

Nina ripped back the curtains to get a clear view of where she was, and before she could register the surroundings, heard Cassidy's screaming. He dove down behind Nina's bed and knocked over a chair in the process.

"What happened?" Nina asked, concerned for Cassidy.

"Close it!" he screamed, pulling the comforter over himself. "Close it!"

"What?" Nina didn't understand.

Just before she was able to ask Cassidy to explain, the suite door connecting their room and the preacher and Tulip's burst open, and Jesse came striding in, clad only in his black pants.

"What the hell's going on?" he thundered, and looked down at the lump of bed linens before him.

Tulip ran past him, and snatched the drapes shut again.

Nina ran to Cassidy, and pulled back the bed linens, instinctually looking his body over for injury. Sounds like that were caused by pain, there was no other cause for a sound like that.

Nina's jaw dropped when she saw Cassidy's arm and the side of his face burned. It wasn't just a sunburn—these were third degree burns. Nina simply stared, wracking her brain for a logical explanation.

"Cassidy," Nina said, looking at his burned arm. "What happened?" She thought maybe he might say it was a spark from the refrigerator or the microwave atop it.

"Well, darlin," he said, panting, and straightening up when he knew that the curtains were securely fastened by Tulip. "I guess this elephant keeps getting bigger and bigger."

Nina searched his face for understanding.

"I'll be fine soon," he said simply. "Once I get a bit o' blood in me. I'm a vampire, y'see."

Nina froze a moment, and stood up so abruptly she collided with Jesse, who put his arms around her before she bolted for the door.

"I don't know what all of you are playing at," Nina said, her eyes wild. She looked at Tulip and Cassidy for some sign of malice or ill-intent and found none.

Cassidy gingerly rose from the floor, and approached Nina. Before he could reach her, Nina flinched and stepped further back into Jesse, whose arms still enveloped her. Nina noticed then that Jesse's skin felt so warm through her sweatshirt—would Cassidy's? Had Cassidy's skin felt cold when he held her last night? She couldn't remember.

Cassidy's face looked pained as Nina recoiled from him.

"Is it true?" she asked Cassidy.

He looked grave. "You know it is, love," he said, looking at his arm. "After all that's happened since last night, you know it is."

She was silent, and stopped resisting Jesse.

"Let me go," she said calmly to the man who held her.

"You can't run off," he said.

"Just. Let. Me. Go."

"Do it, padre," Cassidy said, the hurt in his voice evident. At that, Jesse let go, and Nina broke free. She went through the suite door that Jesse and Tulip had entered, and closed the door behind her.

Jesse and Tulip's room was also a double, with the second bed completely untouched. She thought a moment with disdain that they had put Cassidy in with her because they didn't want her running off. If she was going to make a break for it, now was the time, before any of the three came into the room.

The door opened and closed behind Nina, and when Nina turned around, it was Tulip's face that she saw. Tulip tossed her the bottle of orange juice that Cassidy had been mixing up. Nina caught it.

"Cass says you need it," she said, and Nina knew she was right. Dutifully, Nina opened it and drank half of the mixture in one go.

"I know," Nina started, her voice calm, "that it's a lot to take in. Shit, when I learned he was a vampire, that was the only thing I learned that day that was… _supernatural_. You've got every reason to act the way you do."

They shared silence as they both stood there.

"Is he okay?" Nina asked, her concern as a doctor getting the better of her.

"He's burned pretty good, but the sun does that. He needs blood if he's going to heal."

Nina nodded. "How do you…"

"Get it?" Tulip rolled her eyes. "Sometimes it's someone who's trying to kill us. Most of the time it's a bag of blood from a blood bank or hospital. Or a stray cat."

Nina searched Tulip's eyes for a hint of a lie and found none. Her eyes widened.

"God powers, being related to Jesus, losing the man I thought was my father, and finding out vampires exist all in one day," Nina said. At this, she realized she probably needed the rest of the vodka and orange juice, and finished the whole thing, panting when she had finished.

"Is he…"

"I think he should explain all this to you himself," Tulip said gently.

"Right," Nina said. "Um—Tulip? That's you're name, Tulip? Tulip, I know your boyfriend won't let me leave—for reasons we really still do need to discuss—but if I left with you for example. Would that be ok?"

Tulip's mouth hung open a moment. "I… suppose so, but where do you want to go?"

"The hospital."

* * *

In the half hour following her conditional release from their hotel, Nina learned that they were two hours outside of Chicago, and the nearest hospital was a mere fifteen minutes away. With her work clothes and white coat still in her car, Nina gritted her teeth as she changed out of her bloody clothes and into what would help her pass as part of the hospital staff.

* * *

When Nina returned to the hotel room she had been sharing with Cassidy, her breath hitched a moment. She hiked her gym bag a bit further up her shoulder, and gave Tulip a look as if to say it was okay.

Tulip nodded, and waited for Nina to enter her side of the suite before she entered her own.

When Nina closed the door, she found Cassidy lying pitifully on his bed, shirtless. He turned his head to see who had come in, and when he saw it was Nina, he looked back to the closed window. Nina couldn't figure out if it was in shame that he looked away, or if it was sadness.

"I shoulda told ye," he said simply.

Nina was silent. She placed her gym bag on her bed, and zipped it open gently. She put on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. She pulled out two bags of A positive blood, and came to Cassidy's bedside. The look of surprise on his face made Nina smirk inwardly—barely enough to register on her face. She sat next to his hip, and handed him the first bag, which she had opened with a small utility knife.

He stared at her a moment, waiting for her to look away, and when she did not, he hesitantly took the bag and drank from it. When he was close to finishing that bag, Nina opened the next, and handed it to him. When he had finished, she broke their silence.

"More?" she asked in her usual, caring way, as she did with all her patients. Only, none of them drank blood in order to heal.

Cassidy shook his head, and looked down at his arm, which had begun to mend itself. Nina's eyes widened.

"Thank you," he said, and meant it.

"I'm sorry," Nina said, sheepishly. "I didn't know."

"'Course yeh didn't, cos I didn't tell yeh," Cassidy said, as if it were a no-brainer.

"No, but," Nina said, recalling the way she had recoiled from him, and the thought pained her. "I shouldn't have reacted that way. I've just learned so much these past twelve hours that I was a bit overwhelmed."

"Yeh've more a right to it than anyone, I tink," he said.

Nina looked over Cassidy's arm for any sign of burns left, and found none. Involuntarily she reached out and touched his arm and marveled that even his tattoos had grown back. She ran her hand down his upper arm, mystified at what she'd seen. She noted too that his skin wasn't cold at all. It was cooler than some men, that much was sure, but she had felt colder. She was so engrossed in what she was doing that after a moment of this, she shook herself and told herself that it was a clinical curiosity.

To distract herself she rose from Cassidy's bedside and sat back on her own bed.

"So," Cassidy said, swinging his feet onto the floor and facing Nina. "Let's jus' get the bulk o' the questions out o' the way then, shall we?"

Nina quirked her eyebrow.

"I'm one-hundred-and-nineteen years old. Sunlight is bad. Crosses, stakes through the heart, mirrors, all that shite—load a' bollocks."

Nina shook her head. "If the medical community got word of this—"

"But it's not gonna," Cassidy said, meaning filling his dark eyes. "Yeh know we would be poked and prodded and treated like a bunch o' rhesus monkeys, never leavin' a cage, never dyin', jus'…"

"I know," Nina said. "I would never tell anyone."

"I know yeh wouldn't," Cassidy added with a wink. "Now, movin' on—I think you and I both need a bit more than a screwdriver to put this past us." He opened the drawer of the nightstand that separated the double beds. "I also think you need something to calm yeh down a bit, seein' as you learned all dat shite about yerself, yer da dyin', and me, all in a day."

Out of the dresser he plucked what, to Nina, looked like a blunt. She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Come on, doc," he said, a twinkle in his eye. "It's medicinal."

Nina shook her head and she took it from Cassidy, looking at it pinched between her thumb and pointer finger.

"You know, I haven't done this since medical school," she said, which elicited a cry of "yeeeeees!" from Cassidy. Producing a Bic lighter, Cassidy flicked it and held it in front of Nina, who hesitated a moment before leaning into the flame.

She lit the blunt with a few puffs, holding the smoke in her lungs and exhaled smoothly. After a second hit, she passed to Cassidy. He puffed on it several times and paused to assess Nina's progress.

She nodded, and laid back on the bed, her feet still on the floor. As she floated into oblivion, she felt her bed shift as Cassidy mirrored her own posture, and laid back with his feet still on the floor. He nudged her arm with his and passed her the blunt.

"No, god, I can't," she said, already feeling the effects.

"Come on, jus' a bit more. If yeh don't it'll wear off in an hour," he reasoned.

Nina grumbled and took it, and the two of them finished off the blunt together in silence.

As the two of them lay there and floated in oblivion, Nina's thoughts returned to her father. No matter what she did, her mind still returned to him. At this, Nina shed a few tears, and pressed her palm to her forehead. When Cassidy heard her sniffling, he turned his head to see her crying.

"Now there, _cuishle_ ," he said, and knuckled away her tears. After a moment of this, Cassidy scooted so that he was laying lengthwise on the bed, and helped Nina situate herself the same. The circumstances of the day were too bizarre, too strange, for Nina to object as she may have under normal circumstances.

And now, hiding out in a hotel with a vampire, a preacher and his girlfriend who had essentially kidnapped her, Nina couldn't process any of what was happening to her. She buried her confusion and denial in the promise of numbness that marijuana brought, but it was all for naught. The ebb and flow of sadness was ever present. She had no familiar faces to turn to, no family or loved ones to rely on. Cassidy may have just been a charming Irishman she knew nothing about, but he was kind. And Nina would take that over being alone with her thoughts.

So, the two of them, laying on Nina's bed, looked at each other under a haze. Cassidy allowed himself to really look at Nina the way he'd been denying himself since meeting her. Her eyelashes were heavy with tears, and her skin was splotchy, but somehow this only made her more beautiful in the moment. Without thinking, Cassidy supported himself on an elbow, and leaned down to kiss Nina.

Finding no protest, their lips met, and Nina kissed him back gently. The kiss only lasted a moment. Cassidy pulled back a few inches, and wiped fresh tears off Nina's face.

"Sleep now, y'hear?" Cassidy said, and left Nina on her bed before going to Jesse and Tulip's side of the suite. Before he closed the door, he took one passing look at the beautiful and heartbroken girl, silently pitying her, but all the while feeling selfish for being happy that he had met her.


	3. Chapter 3

The door separating the two joined rooms had only been shut a second before Jesse stood and approached Cassidy. Jesse's arms were crossed, and he had a pensive look on his face.

"We need to talk to her now," he said. "I gave her some time to adjust to all this, but we've gotta start getting some answers."

"Yeah, what about that box thing her dad gave her?" Tulip asked, lounging on her and Cassidy's shared bed.

"Easy now, you two. I don't think yeh'll be gettin' anything out of her for a few hours yet," Cassidy said, looking at the closed door before sitting in the desk chair.

"Cassidy," Jesse warned, his eyes darkening. "What did you do?"

"I just… took the edge off a little," Cassidy said, gesturing with his hands and swiveling back and forth slightly on the desk chair.

Tulip grumbled. "What the hell did you give her?"

"Just a little bit o' the devil's lettuce, calm yerself," Cassidy said. "There's no sense in beating me up over it, it's done. When she wakes up though, you'll have first crack at her."

Tulip raised her eyebrows.

"So to speak…" Cassidy followed up. "So… What's your plan, preacher man?"

Jesse sat next to Tulip.

"Well, if she finds anything in that box, we could sure use some ideas. But I figured… her being what she is, maybe visit some places she's been. Maybe something will stick out to her. Maybe we'll flush god out of what ever rat hole he's buried himself in."

"What about that drivel about him being at a jazz club?" Cassidy asked. "Ye suppose there's anything to that? Maybe we went on the wrong night's all…"

"I don't know," Jesse said, rubbing at his face. "Maybe. But we won't be able to decide for a while yet." He gave Cassidy a warning look. "The second she's awake, you come and get us."

"Right-o, padre," Cassidy said, and dutifully went to the suite door, and returned to his own room.

As expected, Nina laid in the same place he left her. She looked dead to the world, but Cassidy could see her breathing, and that was enough for him. He laid on his own bed, and turned the TV on, with the volume low, and waited for Nina to wake up.

* * *

When she came to, it was eight o' clock at night, and the sun had just set. She rolled over, bleary-eyed, and saw Cassidy drinking a beer.

She breathed in sharply and sat up, alerting Cassidy to her lucidity.

"Rise and shine," he said brightly. "How ye feelin'?"

Nina swallowed—she had the worst cottonmouth she'd ever had. Without a word, she stood, and opened the mini refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water, draining half of it at once.

"That bad, eh?"

Nina nodded, and started rummaging about the kitchenette for the things to make a pot of coffee.

"While yer doin' that, I'm gonna get Jesse," Cassidy said, and walked to where Nina stood. "I put 'im off as long as I could, but we four have a lot to discuss. Preacher man jus' wants to get the ball rolling."

Nina breathed in and held Cassidy's gaze for a moment before nodding. As he looked down on her, something in his eyes made her stomach flutter. What was that? Had something happened before she passed out? He certainly wasn't giving it away if it did.

Cassidy opened the suite door, and gestured for Jesse and Tulip, and while the coffee pot gurgled, she suddenly remembered the feeling of Cassidy's lips on hers. She touched her fingers to her lips lightly, and squeezed her eyes shut in mortification.

She was spared thinking about it further when Cassidy, Jesse and Tulip all came in the room, and sat on the two beds. Nina looked at the three of them expectantly, and poured herself a coffee in a small, ceramic mug.

With a sigh she sat on the desk chair and faced all three of them.

Jesse finally broke the silence. "I'm sorry about your father. Had I known we'd be bringing Grail down on you two, we would have done it differently."

Nina pressed her lips together. She wasn't ready yet to accept this man's apologies.

"Thing is…" Jesse continued, "we've been looking for god for weeks. He's not in heaven. Found that out a while back, and it's just no good for anyone. Maybe it's why the world's just goin' to shit."

"The world has always been going to shit," Nina said flatly. "What makes you think having god back in heaven will do any good?"

"This power that reached me. It can't have done so for no reason. I think you know god going missing is a bad thing, and you just don't want to think about it."

Nina's eyes blazed. "My father died last night. I have a box of secrets I've only just started to delve into. I found out vampires exist, and I'm basically god's great-times-a-hundred granddaughter. Preacher, you're right. I don't want to think about it. I lived a pretty normal life 'til you all waltzed in." Nina was quiet a moment, and continued. "But if you say this organization will keep coming after me until I'm dead, I suppose I have no choice but to stay with you. And help you in this."

Jesse gave an involuntary sigh of relief.

"But!" Nina said, warningly. "You get Grail off my ass in return. I want to go back to my life when this is done. I want to be able to bury my father."

Jesse nodded.

Nina drank from her mug to give herself something to do. "So where do we start?" she asked.

"We were kinda hoping you'd give us an idea," Tulip said tentatively.

Nina's eyes widened a moment. "I haven't the first idea. What have you guys been doing before all this?"

"We were in New Orleans," Cassidy offered.

Nina nearly choked. "New Orleans?"

"Wot?" Cassidy asked incredulously. "You got some tie to that place?"

Nina swallowed her coffee. "Yeah," she said, and set the mug down on the desk so she could focus. "Yeah, it was a refuge city for a handful of Croatians. We were there first, in 1995, before we came to Chicago."

"Christ," Cassidy said, and looked at his friends in disbelief. "Do we go back?"

Tulip cocked her head unsure. Jesse brooded a moment. "I think we should let Nina decide."

"What?" Tulip, Cassidy and Nina all asked in harmony.

"I think if we were supposed to find him, the three of us, we would have before all this happened. Now with her, this changes everything. She's got a different perspective on New Orleans, a different experience."

Nina gave an ironic smile. "I wouldn't know the first place to go."

"That's fine, we'll worry about that when we get there," Jesse assured her.

"Uh, Jesse," Tulip said, "unless you've forgotten, two Grail operatives cornered us and tried to kill us. Don't you think they'll know if we come back to New Orleans?"

"Plain sight maybe? Won't be lookin' under their own noses?" Cassidy offered.

"Maybe," Jesse said thoughtfully.

"You said that you told them you were going to kill me, right?" Nina asked.

"Yeah," Jesse said, "and again, I'm sorry—"

"I don't need another apology. Thank you but that's not my point," Nina leaned forward. "What if… what if you just called them up, and told them that you've gained my trust, and you still plan on following through on their wishes. They gave you two weeks after all, right?"

Tulip smiled. "I think she's got something."

"It's dangerous," Jesse said. "A huge gamble."

"I think..." Cassidy said, "it might just be stupid enough to work."

When none of them objected to the plan, it was settled. Within the hour, they had packed up what belongings they had, paid for their rooms (with Nina's credit card), and piled into Nina's black sedan yet again.

"You wanna drive?" Tulip asked Nina, which surprised her.

"No," Nina said. "I may or may not be about ten percent stoned still, so I don't want to chance it."

Cassidy broke out in a cheshire grin, and all four of them got in their respective seats. When they had been driving for an hour, Nina started fishing in both her bag and her purse for her phone, which she had not seen since Cassidy took it the night before.

"Wot yeh lookin' for, love?" Cassidy asked, flicking a cigarette butt out the back window.

"My phone," Nina said, tucking her messy hair behind her ears.

"Ah," Cassidy said, and pulled it out of his back pocket. "I figured you'd want it eventually, but wot with Grail and all, I kept it turned off. Can't be too careful."

Nina locked eyes with Cassidy, and took it from his hand, their fingers touching only a moment. The contact made Nina's stomach flip, but she pushed past it and powered her phone on.

"Twelve missed calls," Nina said. She read the auto-transcribed voicemails, and though they were littered with errors, she understood enough to know that the police were calling to give her some bad news, and she needed to come in to their precinct to make arrangements.

"Only twelve?" Cassidy asked.

"I'll take care of it when we get to New Orleans," Nina said, tucking the phone in the back pocket of the driver's side seat.

"Ok, so it's been killin' me, doc," Cassidy finally said, turning towards Nina.

"What?"

Cassidy's face grew serious in the dim glow from the dashboard controls. "Circumcision yeah?"

Nina's eyes widened. "What about it?"

Tulip coughed, poorly covering up a laugh.

"Wot do they do with all the little foreskins?"

Nina could see Tulip's shoulders shake silently with laughter. She looked back at Cassidy, who remained dead serious.

"Uh," she said, with a small chuckle. "Well, they're taken to be incinerated, along with other medical waste. Only… a friend of mine from college went into biomedical technology, and some of the samples they work with are actually foreskins."

"AHA!" Cassidy said, leaning forward to put his head between Tulip and Jesse's. "I told yehs! Skin creams."

They kept driving the whole night through, stopping every few hours for gas, food, and for Cassidy, Jesse and Tulip to smoke outside the car, per Nina's request.

"I may be a doctor," she said, "but a young one, and the car is new, so tough."

When the sky began to lighten, Tulip proclaimed that she had had enough of driving, and it was best for Cassidy to be out of the sun if they could manage it, so they checked into another hotel about four hours outside of New Orleans. The setup was the same—a conjoined suite, with Cassidy as babysitter.

When they were secure in their room, Nina caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and realized that she had not showered now for about three days, since she had been going on thirty six hours without sleep when she got to her father's house.

"Good god," Nina said, feeling her hair and looking at her reflection.

"Wot?" Cassidy said as he heeled off his Converses.

"I feel disgusting," Nina said.

"No," Cassidy insisted. "Yeh _barely_ smell, love. We all get a little funk about us now and then. I'm one to talk."

Nina laughed, and immediately stopped herself. She sighed, and her shoulders slumped.

"Don't," Cassidy said. "Yeh just laughed, Nina. It's ok to laugh."

Nina frowned slightly, and nodded her understanding. She had times where she was able to forget for a moment that her father was dead. She was running on survival mode mostly, getting from point A to point B, trying to stay one step ahead of this Grail company. But she was after all in mourning, and it felt wrong to be laughing. But she knew Cassidy was right.

She sighed, and changed the subject. "I'm going next door to grab everyone a new set of clothes. I can't shower and get into dirty clothes."

Cassidy's laughed a low rumble, and shook his head. The difference between the two of them was stark. In his mind he recalled a few bars from Uptown Girl, and smiled at the dichotomy of the two of them.

Nina knocked on the suite door, and Tulip answered.

"Before we get too settled, I want to go next door to that Target," she said, leaning against the doorframe. "And since I can't go _unaccompanied_ , I'll need one of you to come with me."

"Uh… it's six in the morning. Target isn't open yet." Tulip waited a moment. "We'll go in an hour."

The door separating the two rooms shut, and Nina was faced with the reality of being alone in a room with Cassidy again.

She stood tapping her toe a moment, and decided to make a pot of coffee. While she waited for it to brew, Cassidy watched her with an animal-like fascination.

"Sure are addicted, aren't yeh?" Cassidy said.

Nina poured her cup and curled up on her bed, clutching it to her chest. "I work in a Chicago emergency room, what do _you_ think?"

"And I bet that's the worst of yer vices, isn't it?" he smirked to himself.

Nina considered Cassidy a moment. "I'm not a saint, you know."

"Oh, and wot is it that makes you such a baddie?" Cassidy put his hands behind his head and waited for Nina's answer.

She drank from her coffee a moment considering her answer. "I'm impulsive. I'm arrogant. I'm a bitch."

"Bollocks!" Cassidy countered.

"No, no… I am. I mean, I don't have any friends to speak of," Nina's face blanched at her admission. "I lost a lot of friends in college. Some of it was my fault. Some of it not."

Cassidy's smile faded. "Wot part of it was your fault then?"

Nina wiped at the inner corners of her eyes, clearing them of the dust built up from their travels. She answered in a very detached manner. "I sometimes think about the things I said to them in the past. I was just a dumb kid, I didn't really know how to communicate with people. Talking was never a strong point for me. So everything I said seemed to come out wrong. In the end, I was just misunderstood, and people got tired of me."

Cassidy gritted his teeth a moment and looked up at the ceiling in the dim light that emanated from the bathroom. "But," he said, "you are related to Jesus Christ 'imself, so wot do those little gob-shites have goin' fer _them_?"

Nina's lips twitched upwards in an almost-smile. She opened her mouth to respond, when a loud banging started to come from Jesse and Tulip's room. Nina's first reaction was fight or flight, and she set her coffee down to be able to react. It was when she heard the shouts and cries of pleasure that she relaxed a bit.

She wouldn't have given it much of a thought, but the look on Cassidy's face struck Nina. He pursed his lips and looked down at his own lap. She observed him a moment, and as he sighed, she started to understand.

"Does she know?" she asked, mentally chastising herself for feeling the tiniest bit jealous of Cassidy's reaction.

"Yeah…" Cassidy said. "But, I gave up on that a while ago."

Nina shifted so that she was facing Cassidy head-on, her legs crossed on her bed. "Hey."

Cassidy looked over at her.

"It's her loss," she said, trying to convey through a look how serious she was. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Tulip's a bit… complicated?"

"Hmmph," he said, "that doesn't even cover it."

Nina nodded in understanding. "Men love fixing things."

Cassidy waited for her to elaborate.

"I learned," she said and sighed, "that the ones who are worth it fix themselves."

Cassidy smiled, and shifted down in his bed, lying back completely. The two of them passed the rest of the hour watching TV to drown out the sound of Jesse and Tulip working out what ever frustrations they had brewing between them as a couple (Cassidy informed Nina that Jesse had almost killed Tulip's husband about a week prior, and that was enough to explain the angry makeup sex).

At the end of the hour, Tulip opened the door with a bright look on her face, and proclaimed that now they could leave, and she would be waiting in the hallway for her. Nina grabbed her purse and made to leave, but stopped in her tracks a moment. She looked back at Cassidy, and impulsively walked to his bed. He watched her walk over, wondering what she was doing.

She leaned down and planted a soft kiss on his scruffy cheek, hoping that it was enough to smooth the hurt of listening to his two best friends having sex in the other room. Nina stood up, and walked out of the room before she had to look Cassidy in the eyes. When she shut the door behind her, Tulip was waiting for her in the hallway, leaning against the opposite wall.

"What's _that_ smile for?" Tulip asked as the two of them walked towards the elevator.

Nina took a moment to shake the small smile from her face before she answered.

"Nothing."


	4. Chapter 4

Nina and Tulip were among the first customers in Target, along with the senior discount crowd. They shopped in silence, grabbing clothes for themselves and for both Jesse and Cassidy. The superstore wasn't Nina's first choice for apparel on most days, but anything was better than stale, sweaty, and bloodstained clothes.

Nina grabbed a pair of jeans she guessed might fit Cassidy, and slung them over her arm along with the other heap of things she was buying.

"He's sweet on you," Tulip said suddenly, breaking their silence.

"I'm sorry?" Nina asked, looking up from a table piled with women's tank tops.

"Cassidy," Tulip said, hiking her clothes further up her arm.

Nina flushed, and focused on finding her size in a black tank.

"You like him?" Tulip continued.

Nina fought the urge to grit her teeth. Was Tulip jealous? After what she and Jesse had done not an hour before, and Nina was sure had happened many times before? Still, not wishing to be rude, Nina remained impassive.

"Cassidy's been kind to me," she said. "It hasn't been easy these past few days." Nina observed Tulip, and decided that the answer wasn't specific enough for her to leave it alone. "But, if you're asking if I find him attractive… I always did go for the tall and wiry types, so I suppose I do."

Nina turned, and walked towards the checkout counters. Both women tacitly understood their shopping was over, and in an icy silence they paid for their goods. Nina understood the type of woman Tulip was. Wanting to be fixed, but not wanting to be fixed at the same time. Wanting help but refusing it when it was freely given. Enjoying stringing men along when she knew they were pining after her.

Nina was not that kind of woman. Perhaps that was why Nina's bed had been empty most of her adult life, but it sure cut out the bullshit factor. As they rode the elevator up to their rooms, Nina sensed that Tulip was picking up on her judgment, and as Tulip bolted out of the elevator towards her room, Nina felt a pang of guilt.

With a sigh she entered her hotel room and found Cassidy snoring loudly on his bed, on top of the comforter. The sight made Nina involuntarily smile. She set her many bags down on the desk quietly, and grabbed the toiletries she had bought.

When she was in the bathroom, she set them all down on the counter with a little less grace than she's intended, and they clattered about.

"Shit," Nina muttered as she set the bottles upright, not wanting to wake up Cassidy.

She turned on the shower and waited for the water to become almost scalding hot. She stepped in the shower and was finally able to wash away days worth of grime and grease. She involuntarily sighed in contentment, and reveled in how wonderful shampoo and conditioner were, in terms of modern inventions. After almost twenty minutes of this, Nina shut off the shower and wrapped herself in a scratchy, over-bleached hotel towel, and wiped the steam from the mirror. Her skin was bright pink, but she felt more human than she had in several days.

When she had toweled her hair off a bit, she looked around the bathroom and cursed again. All of the clothes she bought were still in the room. She was in such a rush to shower that she forgot everything. She stood still like a dummy for a moment, and decided Cassidy was probably still asleep, so she rewrapped her towel tightly, and tiptoed out of the bathroom to grab a few articles.

Cassidy still slept soundly, but at the sound of crinkling bags, Cassidy turned over to see Nina with damp hair and a towel around her body, rooting through bags. He laid frozen for a moment, and propriety got the better of him, and he turned back over, and covered his eyes.

"Shite, shite," he said, sitting up and letting his feet hang off the bed. "Sorry, didn't mean teh look."

Nina jumped, and held the clothes to her chest a moment. She retreated to the bathroom muttering, "shit, shit, shit."

She hastily threw on the new clothes, and stood staring at herself in the foggy mirror. Her heart raced. She was being stupid, she knew that. But something about Cassidy unsettled her. It might not have had much to do with the fact that he was a vampire, either. He didn't seem to be too driven by the desire for blood like the movies would have you believe. So it wasn't that. Rather, it was what he was making her feel, especially under the circumstances.

After she got over the worst of her mortification, she brushed her damp hair, and steeled herself to walk back out.

Cassidy was lounging on his bed, still covering his eyes.

"Not lookin'," he said, exaggeratedly.

Nina shook her head and walked to her own bed, where she curled up with her legs underneath her. "It's fine," she said. Cassidy brought his hand away from his face, and looked at Nina sympathetically.

"Look, I can show yeh mine if it'll make yeh feel better," he said, pointing to the fly of his jeans.

Nina shook her head and buried her face. She quickly tried to change the subject.

"There's a few things in there for you too. It'll do in a pinch. Until we get to New Orleans."

"Ah, thank yeh fer that, love," Cassidy said, and stretched as he rose from the bed.

"Suppose I ought to hose meself off too, then," he said, and disappeared into the bathroom, where the shower was turned on soon after. Nina listened to the muffled sounds of water splattering in the shower, and idly wondered just how much of Cassidy's body was tattooed.

At this thought, she scrunched her face together and made herself get off her bed, and sat at the desk. Why was she acting so juvenile? Why did this snarky vampire affect her so much?

She put the thought behind her, and forced herself to open her wooden box, and open the second envelope. That letter too was written in Croatian, and she knew she would have her work cut out for her. She read about a page before Cassidy came out of the bathroom, steam billowing from the doorway, with a towel wrapped around his hips.

Nina looked in his direction involuntarily, and looked away quickly when she realized he was much less shy about being half naked than her. She looked back at her letter and kept her eyes on it.

"Sorry love, don't mean ter make yeh uncomfortable," he said, tossing a few articles into the bathroom.

She kept her eyes on her letter a moment. "I _am_ a doctor," she said, and forced herself to look back.

He winked at her, and retreated to the bathroom again. He came out a moment later, and sat at the foot of his bed.

"Wot's it say?" he asked, trying to prize some interaction out of her, if only to set her at ease.

"Uh," Nina said, looking back at Cassidy a moment. "A little bit about The Order. There are cells in many cities in the US. We might be able to find a contact in New Orleans." Nina looked back at her letter, still embarrassed she was so flustered around Cassidy.

"Jesse will be happy teh hear it," Cassidy said, and was silent a moment. He rose from his bed, and stood just behind Nina. "Here," he said, sweeping Nina's hair aside to reach her shirt, causing her to hold her shoulders back. "Yer tag." He grasped the tag, and leaned down to put his teeth on the plastic to break the tag. She felt his breath on her neck, and she involuntarily closed her eyes, and leaned back into him slightly. When he'd broken the tag, he stepped away, leaving Nina wanting for more.

"Damn it," Nina said, and turned around, looking up at the man standing before her. "I know that this whole situation is fucked… my dad's been murdered, I'm being hunted, and I'm being dragged into a spiritual warfare I never asked for."

Cassidy remained quiet.

"But I'll be fucked if the only thing I can think about right now is you," Nina admitted, looking anywhere but Cassidy's eyes.

His eyes widened. "Yeh serious?"

Nina finally looked up at Cassidy. "I think you know I am."

"Well shite, I know I took liberties yesterday when I probably shouldn't've. And that kiss before you left, but I thought you were jus' bein' kind."

Nina was quiet. She was never very good with men, and expressing her feelings. Cassidy picked up on this, and leaned down, placing both hands on both of Nina's chair's armrests. His face hovered a few inches from hers. He searched for permission in her sea green eyes. Nina looked from Cassidy's eyes to his mouth, and back up to his eyes.

This was enough for Cassidy, and he leaned forward to kiss her. Their lips met, and for a moment Nina felt like her chest was going to burst open. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been kissed, which made her sad. Picking up on Nina holding back, Cassidy pulled back, and grabbed Nina's hands, guiding her to the bed.

They stood before it, and Cassidy let go of what he'd been holding back. He snaked his fingers into her damp and wavy hair, and pulled her to him in a deep kiss. His scruff tickled her face, but she didn't mind. She put her hands on his narrow waist and let him guide her. After a moment of this, Cassidy put a knee on the bed, and helped her sit back onto it. Both of them scooting onto the bed might have felt awkward had Cassidy not immediately resumed what he was doing.

Nina's hands came up to rest on Cassidy's chest, which seemed to only fuel the fire building between them. Cassidy's hands roamed Nina's frame, and Nina clutched at Cassidy's plaid button down. She undid the first button, and made quick work of all of them, and when she had finished, Cassidy looked down at her.

"Yeh sure?" He asked, trying to keep his composure long enough to know if this was what Nina really wanted.

She put her hands on his chest, and looked at the broad tattoo that he had. She knew deeply that an impulsive decision like this wasn't going to help bring her father back. It wasn't going to save her from Grail. It wasn't going to change the fact that she was related to Jesus, however distantly. But it would make her feel better right then. And that was enough for Nina.

She nodded her head, and tugged Cassidy's shoulders out of the shirt, which he happily took off for her. She put her hands on his shoulders and ran them down his arms in awe. The gesture fueled Cassidy's ego, and he greedily tugged at the hem of Nina's shirt, which she obligingly took off, along with her bra.

"Thank you, god," Cassidy said, appreciating her small, but perky breasts. Planting kisses on her chest, Cassidy descended lower and lower until he reached her hip bones, which he kissed and bit at gently, eliciting a sigh of approval from Nina.

Cassidy quickly undid Nina's jeans, and with a feral tug he pulled them and her underwear down to her knees, and with one more jerk, they were on the floor. Cassidy put both his hands under Nina's hips and shifted her further up the bed. His face now parallel with her hips, Cassidy kissed from her knee to the inner most part of her thigh. She trembled when she felt his breath on her core. With a devilish grin, Cassidy placed a tentative kiss on her mound, and deepened it when she seemed to be relaxing into his touch.

He spent a few moments exploring her, tasting her, and seeing what would make her moan. When he found the motion that worked best, he kept at it. Sensing she was close to climax, Cassidy pulled back, much to Nina's displeasure. She whined her protest, which made Cassidy laugh a low rumble.

"Please," she said, and put her fingers in his hair.

"Please wot?" he said, and traced a hand up her thigh. His fingers made quick work, parting her and finding the sensitive bundle of tissue.

When she cried out and bucked her hips, Cassidy gently plunged two fingers inside her, and tilted them upwards in a come-hither motion.

" _Please wot_ , love?"

"Please don't stop. I'm so close."

Cassidy smiled again and went back to his ministrations, using both hand and mouth, which caused Nina to seize up, and grip his hair. Cassidy held on for dear life, and increased pressure, which sent Nina over the edge. Her orgasm rolled in waves, longer than any she'd had before.

When she became too sensitive, Nina pushed Cassidy away, and twisted away from him.

He chuckled and laid back a moment to let Nina recover. Her rapid breathing slowed a bit, and she turned to Cassidy, her expression one of disbelief.

"I've never come so hard in my life," she said, and put a hand on his face.

He smiled and kissed Nina with his Cheshire grin still plastered on his face.

"Let's see if we can do better than that," Cassidy said, putting a hand on Nina's hip.

Nina sighed and nodded, reaching for Cassidy's jeans button, undoing it quickly. He did the rest for her, and in a moment they joined Nina's on the floor.

"You on some sort of birth control, love?" he asked, kissing her neck deeply.

Nina moaned when he hit a spot that always undid her. She fought to stay level headed.

"Yes, but… can vampires…?"

"Have children?" Cassidy asked. "Yes, we can. Our biology is more or less the same as human, but with the perks of not dyin' and not getting' any diseases. So, you can rest assured, I may be a dirty old vampire but I'm not… a _dirty old vampire_?"

Nina laughed, and grasped Cassidy's hardness. He grunted happily as Nina moved her hand. Her thumb circled the head, and the sensitive tissue there, and with what could only be described as a growl, Cassidy grabbed Nina's wrists, and pinned them above her head, placing himself between her legs.

As he paused there, he kissed her deeply and slowly. He let go of her wrists and intertwined their fingers. He rested on his forearms, and moving forward, found home deep inside her. As she took him in, Nina knit her eyebrows together, and she cried out loud.

When he could go no further, Cassidy paused, and let her adjust to his size. Her breathing was ragged against his lips. She was not given much reprieve, for he started rocking his hips, setting the pace. She responded in kind, tilting her hips with his.

They lost themselves in the rhythm, and every time Nina came, she clutched at Cassidy's back. Cassidy was close, and his breath hitched in his chest. He came, and groaned gently into Nina's ear. When he finished, he relaxed, and stayed inside her. When the two of them had caught their breath, Cassidy pulled his head back, and brushed Nina's hair from her face.

"You are quite possibly the most amazing woman I have ever met," Cassidy said. He kissed her gently over and over, and pulled away from her, breaking their link. Nina shivered suddenly at the exposure to the cold, hotel room air.

"Oh, _cuishle_ , get under the covers now," Cassidy said, pulling back the covers on his side of the bed. Nina nodded, and pulled her own back. She tucked her legs in, and scooted down under the bed linens. The bed linens were still cold, so Nina pulled Cassidy to her to conserve her heat.

Cassidy smiled to himself, and held his arm out that Nina might be able to tuck into his side. When she had settled in, he pulled the comforter around her shoulders.

Nina and Cassidy were quiet a moment, and Nina traced Cassidy's chest tattoo and the tattoos of the arm on his other side. Cassidy closed his eyes in contentment. He didn't remember the last time a woman had touched him that way.

"What does _cuishle_ mean?" Nina asked sleepily, the exhaustion from a night of driving finally catching up with her.

Cassidy opened his eyes and stared soberly at the ceiling. He thought a moment and then sighed. "Just Irish for darlin', tha's all."

"Hmmm," Nina replied, too tired to challenge him on its literal meaning. Nina quickly slipped off to sleep, and Cassidy held her even more adoringly.

He kissed the top of her head, and whispered the name once more. "Cuishle."

Cassidy did not speak much Irish. What words he knew were most often foul in manner, but a handful he did know he guarded safely, having not used them since he was human. It meant quite literally, "my heartbeat." He had used the name so easily to comfort Nina the morning after her father had died. He didn't know why he used it then, he just did. And now, having just made love to her, he felt it applied even more.

She may not reciprocate his feelings the same way, for she was a maelstrom of emotions after losing her father and her whole understanding of who she was. But feeling that way towards her would be enough for now, and Cassidy soon fell asleep holding the fragile woman.

Across the suite door that separated their room from Jesse and Tulip's, Tulip laid in her bed seething at everything she had heard, and for the life of her could not understand why.


End file.
